Around her raven tresses play,
And buzz about her with delight,
As if, with that melodious sound,
They strove to pay their willing duty
To mortal purity and beauty.
Ah, Wanton! cried the Glendoveer,

No power hast thou for mischief here!

Chuse thou some idler breast,

For these are proof, by nobler thoughts possest. Go, to thy plains of Matra go,

And string again thy broken bow! Rightly Ereenia spake; and ill had thoughts Of earthly love beseem'd the sanctuary

Where Kailyal had been wafted, that the Soul Of her dead Mother there might strengthen her, Feeding her with the milk of heavenly lore,

And influxes of Heaven imbue her heart

With hope and faith, and holy fortitude,

Here rest a while

Against the evil day.

In peace, O Father!

mark'd for misery

Above all sons of men; O Daughter! doom'd

For sufferings and for trials above all

Of women; ... yet both favour'd, both belov'd

By all good Powers, here rest a while in peace.

XI.

THE ENCHANTRESS.

When from the sword, by arm angelic driven,
Foul Arvalan fled howling, wild in pain,

His thin essential spirit, rent and riven With wounds, united soon and heal'd again; Backward the accursed turn'd his eye in flight, Remindful of revengeful thoughts even then,

And saw where, gliding through the evening light, The Ship of Heaven sail'd upward through the sky, Then, like a meteor, vanish'd from his sight.

Where should he follow? vainly might he try

To trace through trackless air its rapid course;

Nor dar'd he that angelic arm defy,

Still sore and writhing from its dreaded force.

Should he the lust of vengeance lay aside ? Too long had Arvalan in ill been train'd; Nurst up in power and tyranny and pride, His soul the ignominious thought disdain'd. Or to his mighty Father should he go, Complaining of defeature twice sustain❜d, And ask new powers to meet the immortal foe?... Repulse he fear'd not, but he fear'd rebuke, And sham'd to tell him of his overthrow. There dwelt a dread Enchantress in a nook Obscure; old help-mate she to him had been,

Lending her aid in many a secret sin';

And there, for counsel, now his way he took.

She was a woman whose unlovely youth, Even like a cankered rose, which none will cull, Had withered on the stalk; her heart was full

Of passions which had found no natural scope,

Feelings which there had grown but ripened not; Desires unsatisfied, abortive hope,

Repinings which provoked vindictive thought, These restless elements for ever wrought, Fermenting in her with perpetual stir,

And thus her spirit to all evil mov❜d; She hated men because they lov'd not her, And hated women because they were lov'd. And thus, in wrath and hatred and despair, She tempted Hell to tempt her; and resign'd

Her body to the Demons of the Air, Wicked and wanton fiends who, where they will, Wander abroad, still seeking to do ill,

And take whatever vacant form they find,
Carcase of man or beast, that life hath left;

Foul instrument for them of fouler mind.

To these the Witch her wretched body gave, So they would wreak her vengeance on mankind, She thus at once their mistress and their slave;

And they to do such service nothing loth,